Work-life balance and stress
Do you live to work or work to live?
A common cause of stress is not having a work-life balance!
Firstly, what does a good work-life balance look like?
- Meeting your deadlines at work while still having time for friends and hobbies
- Having enough time to sleep properly and eat well
- Not worrying about work when you’re at home
Research shows that we are more productive if we have a good work-life balance and businesses that ensure this will have lower attrition.
It’s so easy to get into the habit of letting your job take over let’s talk about the pitfall and how we get ourselves in this situation.
- You start a new job and want to make a good impression so when the boss calls out of hours you are eager to please you answer the phone.
- You have so much to do that you don’t plan your day and just get stuck in.
- Your working day is 8 hours, and you plan 8 hours of work.
- You are concerned asking for help or saying you have too much work is a sign of weakness or that you are not good at your job.
- You are not clear on the priorities or objectives.
- It is the norm in your workplace and your colleagues do the same, working long hours has now become a habit.
Top tips for work-life balance
- Pause, review, and reflect – Are you prioritising work over your life, your health, and your relationships?
- Make some changes
- Don’t answer emails or calls out of hours
- Don’t have your laptop out at home or your emails on your phone
- If you work from home, set up a space that is work and when you finish for the day you leave that space.
- Use your out of office to make clear to customers or colleagues when you are available
- Only plan 6 hours of work into an 8-hour day, something will always interrupt your day, so you need to have the tell to deal with unexcepted urgent actions
- Prioritise tasks
- Use a planner – outlook for instance and share it with your boss so they can see when you have gaps in your schedule or when you are busy
- ASK for HELP and be clear if your workload is too much.
- Track the hours you are working, if consistently working over your contracted hours, this needs to be discussed with your line manager.
- Plan your annual leave for the year so you know when your breaks are and ensure you completely switch off.